THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE

A THOUSAND CLOWNS

Title: A Thousand Clowns
Year of release: 1965
Director: Fred Coe
Screenwriter: Herb Gardner
Country of Production: USA
Genre: Comedy-drama
Length: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Language: English
Availability: A blu-ray was released by Kino Lorber.
Principal boy actor: Barry Gordon plays Nick.

Synopsis
Unemployed television comedy writer Murray Burns lives in a New York studio apartment with his 12-year-old nephew Nick, who has been with Murray for the last seven years when he was left with him by the boy's mother, Murray's unwed sister. Murray is determinedly non-conformist, despising the masses who go to work every morning. But when social workers threaten to take Nick away unless he can prove he is a capable guardian, Murray faces the prospect of having to get a job for the sake of his ward.

Source material
The script was adapted by Herb Gardner from his 1962 play of the same name, and several of the cast, including Jason Robards and Barry Gordon, reprised their role from the Broadway play.

The script was changed considerably for the screen, and even in those scenes that were retained for the film, some lines were omitted. In the original play, when Sandra, one of the social workers, probes Nick's amusement at a model of a woman ("Bubbles") whose breasts intermittently light up, Murray interrupts the interrogation with the words "Nick is a fairly bright kid and he knows that girls are not boys. Other than that his interest in ladies is confined right now to ones that light up or don't light up." (see page, right) In other words, at a few weeks short of his thirteenth birthday, Nick is presumed to not yet have any serious romantic/erotic interest in the opposite sex.

Screencaps

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